Eat more fruit, extra veg, less fat, more fibre: we are vaguely aware of what we should do, but sometimes it's difficult to act on this knowledge. Well, it's good to know that sometimes even very little helps. Adding a few extra vegetables, like
mushrooms
on pizza, more onions to a casserole, or more tomatoes in a sauce makes a difference.
Plants provide, besides vitamins and minerals, many phytonutrients, which exert protective functions in the body. The carotenoid pigment lycopene in tomatoes, for example, reduces the risk of heart disease. The ellagic acid in strawberries and grapes neutralises cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco smoke. Organosulphides in garlic, onions and leeks are important in fighting infections.
You can find many foods mentioned here, from sea greens to mushrooms and other vegetables, on
Kalyx
It is USA-based, and therefore predominantly for North American-based buyers, but it can ship internationally, which can be worth if you're looking for some food not easily found. Bulk foods are offered at discount rates.
If you wish to use nutritional supplements, such as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, two UK shopping search engines, Kelkoo and DealTime, make the whole task of finding them much simpler and quicker.
They help you to compare prices from hundreds of shopping sites to find the best prices when shopping online.
They compare prices for many types of products, including a wide range of nutritional supplements, health products, nutrition, beauty, and many other personal and lifestyle products.
In both Kelkoo and DealTime, choose the category 'Health & Beauty'.
Here are the links:
Kelkoo
A very important vegetable food is
sea greens
,
or sea vegetables. They have such incredible health properties, as well as being tasty, that they have been called superfoods.
Sea greens are rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals (especially the rare and precious iodine), and low in fat.
There are several types of sea vegetables: spirulina, nori, kelp, agar agar, chlorella, Irish moss, alaria, dulse, bladderwrack.
Spirulina
is considered by some the world's healthiest superfood. It has an outstanding nutritional profile of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrents, including anticancer and immunogenic proteins. Although spirulina nourished people in Africa and America for centuries, only recently scientists rediscovered its benefits.
Replacing foods of animal origin with corresponding foods of vegetable origin is generally a very healthy choice.
For example, replacing milk with soya milk, cheese with soya cheese and tofu, and meat with TVP, or textured vegetable protein, which was one of first meat analogue products to emerge over 30 years ago.
TVP, also called dried soya mince or chunks
is very good for fiber.
It is made from the remaining soya flour once the oil has been extracted. Very low in fat and a good source of fibre, it comes as dried chunks, mince or flakes, to which you add water before using in a recipe.
The main food elements are protein, carbohydrates and very little fat. Unflavored textured soy protein is essentially fat-free, since it is defatted during the manufacturing process. The fat content in flavored textured soy proteins varies. Textured soy protein is a complete protein, containing the essential amino acids. It also is high in isoflavones, which have been shown to reduce cholesterol and cancer rates.
